Personal views & experiences from Michele Aggiato

What you need to know before buying the Fitbit Charge 2

One day, somebody at Fitbit Marketing woke up with a great idea. She or he may have slept bad because she couldn’t find a fancy name for a feature which is so what of standard for any wearables. Product management pushed her to come up with something and than that morning a lightening stroke her…

OK, I made up this story and as for any story I like to make up there is a little seed of truth, although in this one the seed is a fully grown cucumber (a synonym used in Italian when it’s not meant for making salad)

When I started to look for smart watch or an activity tracker the most important thing to me was that I can go on a run without the bulky smartphone in my pocket. Smart watch felt simply too expensive. Fitbit had the right mix for me: Heart-rate monitor, automatically tracks activities, distance, steps, … and includes connected GPS. Fantastic, I said to myself, I take it.

To make a proper test, I went on a training route I had several times tracked with Iphone 6 and Strava app. This is what Fitbit tracked:

And this is what I tracked with Iphone 6/Strava on a previous day.

Something was wrong: the distance and the pace.

By the wait! Not just this… actually Fitbit started tracking activity during the night. So yes, I might be sleepwalking but almost 5 kilometers?!?!

I started searching in the Fitbit community for similar experiences and learned that to have a proper tracking I’m supposed to take my smartphone with activated GPS tracking with me.

Because …

Connected GPS means “Fitbit connecting through bluetooth to your bulky smartphone to use the GPS of your bulky smartphone which mean you have to take your bulky smartphone with you although you have an activity tracker with connected GPS” I understand now why our marketing person at Fit may not have slept well. No GPS but bluetooth would have been an understatement, connected GPS simply sounded better.

If you figure out before buying the your next Fitbit activity tracker that connected GPS means a sh**, you may want to check out the other Fitbit models that may have a real GPS tracker integrated.